


What's to come is still unsure

by fengirl88



Series: Remembrances of days foregone [1]
Category: Present Laughter - Coward, Slings & Arrows
Genre: Community: fan_flashworks, Community: intoabar, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-04-28 09:36:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14446452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fengirl88/pseuds/fengirl88
Summary: Even the best actors may end up working behind a bar at some point in their early careers; Geoffrey Tennant is no exception.





	What's to come is still unsure

**Author's Note:**

> written for the intoabar challenge prompt: 
> 
> Geoffrey Tennant goes into a bar and meets... Morris Dixon (Present Laughter)!

Geoffrey knows his way around the various types of theatre queens who frequent the Admiral: the ones who flirt outrageously with the bar staff, the ones who mostly bitch about the shortcomings of the production they’ve just seen, the ones who were obviously well-oiled before the show started and topped up nicely at the interval so they’re one or at most two drinks away from reeling (you’ve got to watch that lot, because there’s a point where you should stop serving them and they won’t take it well). 

This man’s one of the other kind: the reminiscers who call you _laddie_ , like the actors in Blackadder the Third, and bend your ear about the glory days of people you never saw and have barely heard of. He’s in his seventies, maybe: tall, good-looking, slightly drunk. Brandy and soda, double. Gets points for spotting that Geoffrey’s Canadian not American, then promptly loses them again by enthusing about the charm of the provinces.

“Canadian audiences know how to appreciate good acting,” he says. “Garry’s tour was a triumph. A triumph! But was he grateful?”

“To the Canadians?” Geoffrey asks, missing his cue. He’s only half listening.

“Canadians be damned,” Brandy and Soda says, swerving into truculence. “They should think themselves lucky to get him.”

“Right,” Geoffrey says. Perils of a quiet night, getting stuck with this one.

“Was Garry Essendine grateful to _me_?” Brandy and Soda gestures wildly. 

Geoffrey catches the glass just in time and mops up the spilled drink. “Was he?”

“No!” the man says, and thumps the bar. “Not grateful to me. Not grateful to Henry. Not even grateful to Liz. Or Monica,” he adds, as an afterthought.

“That’s a lot of ingratitude,” Geoffrey says. He has no idea who any of these people are, up to and including Garry Essendine.

“Another brandy and soda, dear boy. Double.”

Somewhat against his better judgement, Geoffrey mixes him one.

“So what does he do? After all our hard work, what does the unspeakable swine do?”

“I can’t imagine,” Geoffrey says, with complete truth.

“Peer Gynt,” the man says explosively. “I ask you. Peer _bloody_ Gynt.”

“Mmm,” Geoffrey says. “It’s a difficult play to stage effectively.”

“At the Lyceum, of all places,” the man moans. “Five hours with the tea interval. Sank like a stone.”

A group of regulars come in, and Geoffrey serves them, though this doesn’t stop the flow of reminiscence.

“Completely unsuited to the part,” the man says. “Give him a light French farce or a good old-fashioned well-made play and he’d have them eating out of his hand. But Peer Gynt, for the love of God!”

The nicest of the regulars catches Geoffrey’s eye and grins in sympathy. Geoffrey smiles back, friendly but not encouraging. 

“End of his career,” Brandy and Soda laments. “End of the Firm, too. Such a waste. Garry was _good_ , you know. Almost as good as he thought he was. But no head for business. No judgement.”

“That’s a shame,” Geoffrey says. It sounds quite sincere. There’s nothing like practice to perfect you in a role, and Sympathetic Bartender is the longest run he’s had in London.

“Well, well,” the man says, and takes a long pull at his drink. “What are you doing so far from home?”

“I’m an actor,” Geoffrey says firmly, because he _is_ , even if the bar work’s the only thing currently keeping a roof over his head. 

“An actor.” The man squints at him, evidently trying to focus. “Hmm. You’ve got the appearance all right. How’s your verse speaking?”

“Not bad,” Geoffrey says. “Pretty good, actually.”

“So?”

Surely he doesn’t seriously expect Geoffrey to demonstrate here and now?

“Come on, boy,” Brandy and Soda says, impatiently. “Never get on in the theatre if you’re shy.”

All right, then. Geoffrey leans across the bar, pitches his voice at the right level of quiet intensity and launches into Claudio’s speech from _Measure for Measure_ :

“Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;  
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;  
This sensible warm motion to become  
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit  
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside  
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;  
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,  
And blown with restless violence round about  
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst  
Of those that lawless and incertain thought  
Imagine howling: 'tis too horrible!  
The weariest and most loathed worldly life  
That age, ache, penury and imprisonment  
Can lay on nature is a paradise  
To what we fear of death.”

Brandy and Soda swallows hard, and wipes his face with a purple silk handkerchief. “Good,” he says. “Very good.”

“Thanks,” Geoffrey says. He’s still slightly giddy from the exhilaration of performing that speech, even to a drunken audience of one.

“Do you have representation?” The man refrains from saying _Fire them if you do, because they’re obviously lousy._ He takes out a flat silver case. “My card.” 

**Morris Dixon: Theatrical Manager  
Tel. 750 2642**

“Thank you,” Geoffrey says, politely.

“I’m serious,” Morris Dixon says. “Your luck is about to change.”

He tucks the card into Geoffrey’s shirt pocket with a pat, and sweeps out of the bar.

Geoffrey rubs his eyes, not quite sure he isn’t dreaming. Alex comes back up from the cellar, and Geoffrey embarks on a round of glass-collecting.

“How’s it going?” the nicest of the regulars asks.

“OK, thanks,” Geoffrey says, “I guess.”

“You were good in that Genet thing at the Donmar.”

It was only a rehearsed reading; but a rehearsed reading’s better than nothing, and maybe a foot in the door. God knows he needs one. Money’s running low, even with the bar work.

“ _Good?_ ” an indignant voice says behind him. “Fucking _magnificent_ is what he was.”

Indignant, slightly slurred, and unmistakably Canadian. Geoffrey turns to see who’s speaking and nearly drops the stack of glasses he’s carrying.

“I’m Oliver Welles,” the newcomer says, and beams at him.

“Yes,” Geoffrey says stupidly. “Yes, you are.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to second_skin, theicescholar and Owl_by_Night for their encouragement with this fic.


End file.
